Black Head-to-Head

Share.

Either way, this game rocks.

By IGN Staff

About the Head to Head

The main purpose of our H2H series is to arm you with enough information and facts for you to make an educated decision. Whether you agree with our overall recommendation or not doesn't matter as much as being able to make a decision of your own.

Looking for more? Please feel free to follow up with a question to our mailbag.

There has been a slow trickle of games released this year and few other titles have garnered as much attention as Criterion's brilliant FPS. Recent releases like Fight Night Round 3 have a 360 version that make the previous generation look like old news. In this case Black was designed around the PS2 architecture with impressive results. The lighting, sound, and interactive environments are more than we ever thought was possible on Xbox and PS2.

Normally we break the Head-to-Head down into separate sections including features, control, graphics, sound, and presentation. In this case EA has produced nearly identical versions of a terrific game so our written portion is a bit condensed. We decided to focus on presenting side-by-side video of the game on both systems so you can see for yourself how each version looks.

Features In this section, we examine what relates to the main gameplay experience. Following, we have arranged a simple breakdown of the advantages and disadvantages of each system's gameplay features. If there are no advantages in any specific area, it means both share the same content.

The Xbox and PS2 version of the game contain the exact same feature sets. You get a single player game that lasts about six hours. There is no multiplayer or online mode in either copy, just an all-out single-player experience accurately described by Criterion as "gun porn."

Xbox Disadvantages: One feature missing from the Xbox game is backwards compatibility with Xbox 360. Alex Ward of Criterion has stated that the game is not compatible and there is not a plan for a 360 version of the game other than the possibility of Black 2 a few years down the road. EA has little to do with the decision considering Microsoft decides which games will work with the new console by releasing patches. This will of course affect the buying decisions of gamers who have permanently replaced the old Xbox with the new one.

Breakdown: The game has the same content on both consoles. Flip a coin, go with a fan favorite, or just go with whatever controller you picked up last.